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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27085228">sun drowns the house</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalparadises/pseuds/fictionalparadises'>fictionalparadises</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Formula 1 RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Casual Intimacy, Fluff, M/M, Max is hopelessly in love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 02:28:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,099</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27085228</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalparadises/pseuds/fictionalparadises</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunsets in Monaco, Max finds, are very different from sunsets in Perth.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>georgerussellls' f1 fic recs!</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sun drowns the house</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title taken from undo by the 1975</p><p>i don't even know lol</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He wakes up in a pair of strong arms on Sunday morning. His eyes trail the ink on the golden skin absent-mindedly, before he’s had the chance to actually rub the sleep out of his eyes and take in the rest of his surroundings. It’s a ritual, something he always does if he gets the chance to wake up like this.</p><p>There’s soft breathing behind him, evened out, chest warm where it’s pressed against his back.</p><p>Max bites back a smile, refrains from moving or shifting into a different position, and wraps his hand around Daniel’s arm, if only to remind himself that he’s not actually dreaming.</p><p>-</p><p>Max knows from experience that first kisses are often clumsy and awkward, but theirs had been a <em>disaster</em>. Max had been impulsive, angry after the first race without Dan as his teammate, happy to see him again yet something like despair curling in his stomach at the same time, the inevitability and reality of Daniel leaving catching up to him.</p><p>Daniel isn’t one for arguing or getting angry, but Max had been egging him on since the moment Dan stopped by Max’s driver’s room after the race to congratulate him on the podium. Any questions about <em>how was summer break</em> and <em>are you going back to Monaco afterwards</em> had been met with snide remarks, and Max hadn’t been fair about it but Daniel hadn’t been fair to leave the team, to leave <em>him</em>, and he hated himself for acting like he did but couldn’t help feeling almost satisfied by Dan’s reaction.</p><p>There hadn’t been any yelling but there had been hurtful words until Max staggered two steps forward and grabbed him by the collar. The kiss was all teeth clashing and noses bumping against each other, tension relieved and replaced with one dumb move on his behalf.</p><p>Daniel had pulled back, wide-eyed, surprised, before Max turned on his heel and practically sprinted out of the room, leaving him standing confused and wondering what the hell just happened.</p><p>When there’s a knock on the front door of Max’s apartment a day later, the last person he expects to stand in front of it is Daniel.</p><p>The kiss is softer this time. It tastes like the salt of Max’s tears, it feels like months of pent-up anger and frustration, it smells like sweat and worn-off cologne. Daniel’s shirt is silky in his clenched fists.</p><p>-</p><p>The first months after are the strangest, both of them wondering where they’re standing with their relationship and neither daring to ask. Talking about it makes it feels so real, like something solid, and then it can be taken away from him, like so many things before.</p><p>But it’s fresh, it’s feeling giddy and dizzy with emotion, it’s being overwhelmed with how strong he experiences this <em>thing</em> with Daniel.</p><p>It’s trudging across dilapidated hotel carpets at one in the morning to Daniel’s room because they both can’t sleep, it’s waiting for texts and calls throughout the day, it’s lingering touches and inside jokes that no one else understands when Dan makes them.</p><p>They trade kisses in the dark of their hotel room, legs tangled up, broad hands warm where they rest on his skin.</p><p>-</p><p>He wants to bottle up the sound of Daniel’s laugh and get drunk on it every night.</p><p>-</p><p>Max hates how the distance between his apartment and Dan’s apartment in Monaco sometimes feels bigger than the distance between his apartment and Dan’s farm in Perth. How he’s sometimes so excruciatingly close but still out of reach.</p><p>It’s a strange realization that he could take two flights of stairs and see the person who brings him such genuine happiness whenever he feels like it, but he <em>can’t</em>, because some days his family is there, or he knows Daniel is hanging out with friends, or he’s working out with his trainer and they can’t know.</p><p>It’s a secret, but most days Max feels like screaming it from the rooftops. He has never felt like this before—no one has made him feel like this before. </p><p>-</p><p>Weightless. Like drifting in the ocean.</p><p>It’s an intricate dance, one only the two of them know, one they perfected themselves, every step and move and motion.</p><p>Max never thought he’d be one for waltzing.</p><p>-</p><p>Winter break brings both pain and pleasure, pain because he doesn’t see Dan for nearly a month, pleasure because he hops on a plane to Australia and arrives a long twenty-four hours later in Dan’s arms.</p><p>Christmas Eve is spent on the terrace of Daniel’s farm, sitting in front of a fire, arms wrapped around each other so tight that it’s almost as if they’re scared they’ll float away if they let go. Max doesn’t want to go to sleep, doesn’t want this feeling or this night to end, so they sit through the darkness until the sky starts unraveling at the edges.</p><p>Sunsets in Monaco, Max finds, are very different from sunsets in Perth.</p><p>They end up sleeping throughout most of Christmas Day, waking late in the afternoon to a hot and sunny day. With a few hours left before Daniel’s family comes over, they should get out of bed to prepare dinner, but Daniel intertwines their fingers and pulls up the covers to his nose and gives Max one of those grins that makes his stomach do flips and says, “A few more minutes, yeah?”</p><p>Christmas here isn’t celebrated in the way that Max is used to. There’s no Christmas tree, no snow—he wears shorts and a t-shirt—no traditional family dinner. For some <em>semblance of normalcy </em>for him, as Daniel had dramatically explained, there are string lights up in the living room and there’s mistletoe on the doorpost.</p><p>That is, until Daniel decides to carry it around with him and sticks it in the air above Max’s head during the most inconvenient times, like when he’s with his hands in a bowl of dough, and Max curses him out for an idiot but still kisses him and can’t keep the smile off his face when he does, because he might be an idiot but at least he’s <em>his</em>.</p><p>Daniel ends up with flour all over his face and in his hair. A portrait of Max’s love; Dan doesn’t want to wash it off but Max forces him to look at least a little decent for when his family shows up, so Dan snaps a picture before he leaves the kitchen to clean up.</p><p>Max listens to him singing in the shower, smiling so big his cheeks starts hurting, heart feeling like it’s in the exact right space.</p><p>-</p><p>A soft Australian accent, hushed whispers at seven in the morning, the scratch of stubble on his cheeks leaving red marks.</p><p>Daniel buys his clothes oversized, and Max having barely half an inch on him feels like he’s swimming in the white hoodie he has on. There’s something so comforting about the way the fabric feels worn to the perfect extent, or the mixed smell of Daniel and laundry detergent that has permanently attached to it.</p><p>Max likes falling asleep outside, something he does often on his balcony in Monaco, just listening to the faint sounds of traffic in the distance and people laughing as they return from a night out, lying on his back on the couch and watching the few stars he can see. Daniel doesn’t fully understand why, just gives him a furtive smile and lies down next to him, no questions asked. Daniel always radiates heat—maybe it’s the Australian part of him, who knows—and Max curls up against his side, half-asleep and content.</p><p>-</p><p>If someone asked, he’d say every minute spent with Daniel is a good one, but if he had to choose his favorite moments, it’d be the ones that are so unintentionally domestic and gentle.</p><p>Daniel has some emails to read before he goes to sleep, laptop propped up on top of the covers. Max rolls over until his stomach is pressed against Dan’s side, glancing at the computer screen at first, eyes half-closed against the brightness, until he loses interest and turns his head, resting his chin on the soft spot of Daniel’s shoulder. His eyes trail his jaw, the soft curve of his lips, the crinkled skin around his eyes. His hands almost itch with how bad he wants to follow those lines with the brush of his fingertips. </p><p>Dan’s gaze flickers from the screen to Max every few minutes until he finally breaks the silence and asks, “What are you looking at?”</p><p>And Max replies, unashamed, unequivocally, “You,” and Daniel’s face breaks into that ethereal grin of his that takes the air right out of Max’s lungs before he leans in to kiss him.</p><p>-</p><p>Whenever someone asks him what his favorite color is during interviews or fan signings, he usually replies blue, or red. In truth, nothing can compare to the burnished copper of Daniel’s skin, not when he’s lying in white hotel-bed sheets, not when he’s wearing shorts and the tattoo on his thigh peaks out from under them. Not when Max’s hands are splayed on the smooth planes of Daniel’s stomach, and the colors of their skin contrast in the most perfect way possible.</p><p>-</p><p>Daniel usually falls asleep first whenever they have the possibility to share a bed, whether that’s at home or on the road, opposite to Max who has to sort through the day before he can close his eyes. It’s not like he minds.</p><p>He cards his fingers through Daniel’s curls and watches as he falls asleep.</p><p>Some days it’s impossible to make it to each other’s hotel to stay the night, some days it’s impossible to kiss Daniel before a free practice or a race, some days it’s impossible to tell him Max has missed him. All days, Max loves him so much that his heart feels like it could burst in his chest.</p><p>-</p><p>Max has never been a naturally talkative person. He doesn’t consider himself a man of many words. Telling Daniel he loves him is something he’s done perhaps twice, once while he was half-drunk, the other when Daniel was already half asleep.</p><p>Daniel knows this. He knows this and he’s okay with it, okay with being with someone who’s so contrary to him. Maybe that’s why it works so well; Max finally has someone who’s coaxing him out of that shell he’s in, who helps him grow a little every day.</p><p>Max doesn’t say <em>I love you</em> a lot, but overtime, Daniel has learned the love language he does possess, he’s learned to read and translate the little things he does that show affection so simply but pure. And Max has learned how to convey it more clearly, what works and what doesn’t, and who knew it could be so freeing to be with someone who makes you want to learn these things and become better than you were yesterday.</p><p>It’s in getting up fifteen minutes earlier in the morning to make one of those green smoothies with kale and cucumber that Max refuses to drink himself but knows Daniel prefers for breakfast.</p><p>It’s in asking him, “Did you eat?” after Daniel has had a long day of interviews and meetings.</p><p>It’s in letting him sleep after not seeing him all week and desperately wanting to talk and see him laugh and kiss until his lips are bruised, but knowing sleep is scarce for him as it is and giving him the rest he deserves.</p><p>It’s in texting him, <em>did you get home safe?</em> after going out with a group of friends in Monaco and taking different taxi rides home because they couldn’t all fit in the same one.</p><p>So Max doesn’t outright tell him he loves Daniel often, but he loves him to an extent that manages to surprise him every time it strikes him full force, and more importantly, Daniel <em>knows</em>.</p><p>-</p><p>They watch the sunset from Daniel’s terrace in the first week of August in Perth, fingers intertwined, Max’s chin hooked over Dan’s shoulder, talking softly about nothing at all. It stopped raining an hour ago and the stone glistens in the orange sunlight, the reflection almost blinding.</p><p>Max makes some misplaced joke about Helmut Marko and smiles when he can feel Daniel’s laugh rumbling through his chest.</p><p>It’s quiet for a moment, Dan’s head tilted as his eyes are fixated on the horizon. Max stares at his side profile, notices the way the brown of his eyes seem to be liquid in this lighting.</p><p>Daniel Ricciardo is a work of art he could admire forever.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hi leave a comment or come talk to me on <a href="https://twitter.com/sundaycore">twitter</a> / <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sundaycore">tumblr</a> &lt;33</p></blockquote></div></div>
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